NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A major NewsChannel 5 investigation has uncovered serious questions about Tennessee’s war on drugs. Among the questions: are some police agencies more concerned about making money off the drugs, than stopping them?

At the center of this months-long investigation are laws that let officers pull driver over looking for cash. Those officers do not even have to file criminal charges against a person to take his/her money.

It turns out, those kind of stops are now happening almost every day in Middle Tennessee.

Case in point: a 2009 stop where a tractor trailer was stopped for a traffic violation, leading to a search and the discovery of large blocks containing almost $200,000 cash — cash that officers keep on the suspicion that it’s drug money.

“What’s wrong with having a large amount of cash?” asked Karen Petrosyan, a California businessman who owned the truck.

Petrosyan refuses to admit there’s anything suspicious about the stash that police discovered. Officers later released his father, who was driving the truck, without filing a single charge — and authorities cut a deal that let Petrosyan come to Tennessee to get his big rig back.Read officers’ narrative about why money seized

“If I am a criminal, if they allege me to be a criminal,” Petrosyan told NewsChannel 5 Investigates, “why would they settle? They do not just let criminals go.”

District Attorney General Kim Helper said that “in general, it was seized because — based upon our evidence and probable cause — it’s illegal drug proceeds.”

Still, Helper admitted that what makes the Petrosyan case a bit unusual is the location. The traffic stop occurred in Smith County, near the Carthage exit. But the officers work for Helper’s 21st Judicial District Drug Task Force out of Franklin — more than an hour away.

“It’s a way to make money … for your task force?”NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Helper.

The DA paused.

“Honestly?” we asked, prompting a smile from Helper.

“Well, you know, when you say ‘make money,’ I guess it is a way for us to continue to fund our operations so that we can put an end to drug trafficking and the drug trade within this district,” she responded.

In fact, Interstate 40 has become a major profit center for Tennessee law enforcement — with officers stopping and often searching out-of-state vehicles. It’s because of a state law that lets them seize money simply based on the suspicion that it’s linked to drug trafficking.

If an owner does not take legal action to get the money back, the agency gets to keep it all.

“This is really highway shakedowns coming to the U.S.,” said Scott Bullock, senior attorney with the Washington-based Institute for Justice.

Last year, the conservative-leaning group issued a report — “Policing for Profit” — that gave Tennessee a D-minus for civil forfeiture laws that make that it all possible.Read the “Policing for Profit” report here

“Under civil forfeiture,” Bullock said, “you give law enforcement a direct and perverse incentive to go out and try to take as much property from citizens as possible.”

Dickson Police Chief Ricky Chandler said, “What we are doing, we’re taking advantage of how the laws are, to use the money to be able to put back to fight the drugs.”

Chandler heads the board for the 23rd Judicial District Drug Task Force, which has made millions off seizures in its counties — Humphreys, Dickson and Cheatham. The town of Fairview also provides officers to the Task Force in exchange for a cut of the cash.

Then, three years ago, Chandler and the Dickson County sheriff helped create a second team — known as Dickson Interdiction Criminal Enforcement, or DICE — to work the exact same stretches of interstate.

Both DICE and the 21st Judicial District say they do not keep such daily activity reports.

UPDATE: A review of case summaries supplied by DICE shows that the entire team made one drug seizure — 602 grams of heroin — from Interstate 40 in all of 2010. Those officers arrested six people during stops on I-40 during that same 12-month period — four of them on fugitive warrants, not for drug possession. Most DICE cases were seizures of money in the westbound lanes.Review summary of DICE cases, 2010

“We want both sides of the road worked,” Chandler insisted.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates noted, “It looks like that they are not concerned about stopping the drugs, they just want the money.”

“That’s what it looks like,” the chief admitted.

Is that the case?

“That shouldn’t be the case, but that’s what it looks like.”

Scott Bullock with the Institute for Justice said that “it shows that the police are really focusing, not on trying to get the drugs, not on trying to enforce the drug laws and stop that flow throughout the country. They’re focused on getting the money.”

And it can lead to turf wars.

After DICE got a $1 million seizure last fall, police video shows that a DICE officer suddenly found himself being blocked by a unit from the 23rd while watching the westbound lanes. Within minutes, five units from the 23rd were lined up in a show of force.

“Competition can be a good thing,” the chief said, “as long as you don’t violate any person’s rights.”

But they’re competing for the money that they can take off of drivers.

“Well, they are competing to do their jobs is what they are competing for,” he insisted.

It’s a job that, Bullock said, has lost its way. “Law enforcement is supposed to be about getting the bad guys. It’s not supposed to be about making money.”

Law enforcement authorities say their goal is to hit the drug traffickers in the pocketbook.

But some people have hired lawyers after their cash was taken and, sometimes after months and months of litigation, judges have ruled that the money that was taken from them really had nothing to do with drug dealing at all.

Chandler chairs the board of the 23rd Judicial District Drug Task Force and serves on the board of the Dickson Interdiction and Criminal Enforcement (DICE) unit, both of which patrol a 50-mile stretch of Interstate 40 west of Nashville.

For a whole day, NewsChannel 5 Investigateswent on patrol with DICE officers, seeing how traffic violations searches that they hope will yield drugs or, like in one case, a stash of more than $200,000 of suspected drug money.

A DICE officer told us that the traffic stop is key.

“We’re not allowed to pull over anybody just for the sake of pulling them over,” he said.

But NewsChannel 5 Investigates was also watching from Sky 5 and had questions about this stop where a supervisor from the 23rd pulled over two Hispanic men in an SUV with Texas plates.

His explanation was caught on his in-car video:

“Hey, the reason why I stopped you was you were coming outside your lane of travel. I don’t know if you’re getting sleepy or you’re not drinking are you?”

Yet, our camera had been tracking that same supervisor and captured the exact moment that he put on his brakes — just as he was about to pass the Texas vehicle. The video shows that the SUV was squarely between the lines.

For almost two minutes, the interdiction vehicle trailed the Texas SUV. While the officer himself was all over the road, it was another story for the two Hispanic men.

We showed the video to Chief Chandler.

“[On] the tape, it was not weaving. It did not cross the line — you’re right,” he said.

“He never weaved once, did he?” we asked.

“No, he stayed within his lane of traffic.”

NewsChannel 5 Investigates obtained other videos from that same 23rd Drug Task Force supervisor, where he stopped out-of-state drivers and never even told them that they violated any traffic laws.

“I can’t explain,” Chandler said. “He should be doing that. He’s been trained. He knows how to do that, and he should be doing that.”

Still, neither of the agencies operating in the Dickson area have their cameras set to record the traffic violations that make the stops legal.

“From their perspective, I don’t know how it would benefit them to record that,” said Nashville attorney Dominic Leonardo.

Leonardo said that a defense lawyer could use such video to fight a case. But, without it, it’s the out-of-state driver’s word against the word of a sworn police officer.

“If you have no other evidence there, then chances are the person who’s hearing this case over the seizure of money or the criminal aspect if there [are] criminal charges brought, the police officer is going to win,” he added.

Then, after the traffic stop comes the part where, if officers have suspicions about a driver, even if they don’t really have a legal reason to search the vehicle, there’s nothing to stop them from trying to persuade the person to let them search.

Take, for example, a stop observed from Sky 5 where an out-of-state driver was detained for more than 20 minutes while agents from the 23rd searched his car.

“This is a very fine line between a good stop where there may be a bust to it — or basically a legit guy and a complaint,” that same supervisor told a fellow officer.

He suggested that they use the driver’s claim that he has worked with police as an interpreter.

“Play it off like he’s one of us. Hey, if you could do us a favor, if I get another search out of the way, I get to go to lunch.”

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Chandler if it is “OK to trick people into consenting to searches.”

“Power of persuasion and tricking are two different things,” the chief answered, “and I think you’ve got to be able to be persuasive to get searches if you’ve got hunches.”

In another case, the supervisor bluffed the passenger in a car.

“Would there be any reason why we might have received a phone call and been told that this vehicle was transporting a large amount of cash?” he asked.

In fact, it was a lie — and the search found nothing.

We noted to Chandler that the two agencies are “pulling lots of people off the interstate,” applying the same techniques. “Is there any part of that that bothers you?”

“No,” he said, “as long as it’s a legal traffic stop.”

As for the questionable traffic stop caught by Sky 5, “Rest assured, if I can get a copy of this tape it will be looked into…. That doesn’t look good at all.”

NewsChannel 5 provided Chandler with a copy of the video and posted it online here. (At one point, the Texas SUV moves out of the frame — except for the left mirror which can be seen tracking the dotted, white line.)

Yesterday, the Belgium Health Ministry confirmed it was banning fluoride tablets and fluoride chewing gum.(1) This fluoride ban comes after a new health study “found excessive use of fluoride products increased the risk not only of osteoporosis, but of damage to the nervous system too”. Osteoporosis causes weakening of bones and can lead to fractures.

In America, now officially a police state, you will be tasered in your own home if you lip off to the police.

Senior citizen Peter McFarland of Marin County, California, discovered this after he fell down the stairs outside his home last year. On June 29, 2009, McFarland tumbled down the stairs and after his wife called paramedics the cops showed up. They entered McFarland’s home and tasered him because they claimed he was suicidal.

“We want to take you to the hospital for an evaluation, you said if you had a gun, you’d shoot yourself in the head,” a deputy can be heard saying on a video of the incident captured on a taser mounted camera. McFarland said the comment was hyperbole made because he was in pain.